The reality star shows a more sober side in the wake of her failed marriage to Kris Humphries.

Kim Kardashian is showing some of the wear and tear of her October divorce filing from Kris Humphries and the resulting fallout. In her first cover interview conducted after the filing, it seems the reality star is decidedly more grounded about romance and family.

“I believe in love and the dream of having a perfect relationship, but my idea of it has changed,” Kardashian tells Glamour Magazine for its Jan. issue on sale Dec. 6.

“I think I need to not live in a fairy tale like that,” she continues. “I think I maybe need to just snap out of it and be a little more realistic.”

That’s a far cry from an interview she gave Marie Claire a few weeks before she filed for divorce in which she described her marriage to Humphries as “the best time of my life.”

It seems the recent events have changed more than just her naïve view of romance, but she’s reevaluating her early desires for her own future family.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I always wanted what mom and dad had. And at first I was like, ‘I want six kids.’ Then I went down to four, then I was down to three…and now I’m like, ‘Maybe I won’t have any. Maybe I’ll just be a good aunt.’ ”

She goes on to say, “That’s how I feel. Maybe my fairy tale has a different ending than I dreamed it would. But that’s OK.”
Thankfully for her, her sisters are also featured in the magazine. And the always blunt Khloe Kardashian tells Kim, “Oh my God. Don’t be dramatic all of a sudden!”

His Majesty the King will greet the masses on Dec 5 as the nation celebrates the monarch’s 84th birthday.

The King will arrive at the Chakri Maha Prasart Throne Hall in the Grand Palace at 10.30am on Dec 5, Royal Household Bureau special adviser Ratanavudh Vajarodaya said.

On Dec 5, 480 royal guards will take part in the ceremony which includes taking the oath of allegiance.

About 5,000 government guests and well-wishers will attend the event.

Other events to celebrate the King’s birthday will be held from Dec 3-9 at Sanam Luang, Mr Ratanavudh said.

The events include light and sound performances and a film 84 Years of Rattanakosin’s Prosperity. The film will be projected on the wall of the Grand Palace. It will run for 20 minutes from 7pm to 10pm, Mr Ratanavudh said.

The cabinet yesterday approved 117.7 million baht for the birthday events. Deputy government spokesman Chalitrat Chantharubeksa said the budget, initially set at 106.5 million baht, was increased to 117.7 million baht.

Culture Minister Sukumol Khunploem yesterday said the ministry and Asean countries had agreed to jointly hold an international performance to mark His Majesty’s birthday. The performance will be held on Dec 6 and 7 at the National Theatre.

Editor’s note: This article is the second of a three-part series adapted from the new e-book “Letters to Steve: Inside the E-mail Inbox of Apple’s Steve Jobs,” written by CNN tech writer Mark Milian. He self-published the book on Amazon Kindle, where it has been a top 100 best-seller. This e-book is not affiliated with or endorsed by CNN.

(CNN) — Steve Jobs wasn’t eager to disclose details of his health issues over the years.

That the Apple co-founder contracted a rare form of pancreatic cancer in 2003 wasn’t disclosed until after his return from surgery more than nine months later. Another health problem, which was innocuously described at first as a “hormone imbalance,” turned into a six-month leave during which Jobs underwent a liver transplant.

Yet Jobs’ views on existence, as he increasingly faced his own mortality, became ever more poetic and less concealed toward the end. These could be seen in the rare interviews he’d grant but also in e-mail correspondences with acquaintances and strangers, which he often took the time to partake in.

“I don’t think of my life as a career,” he told Time in 2010. “I do stuff. I respond to stuff. That’s not a career — it’s a life!”

Jobs also shared his condolences and personal revelations with others facing similar pressures. A man named James told the news site Business Insider that he e-mailed Jobs on April 20, 2010, to thank him for supporting an organ donor program. James mentioned that his girlfriend had died of melanoma two years before.

Jobs replied: “Your [sic] most welcome, James. I’m sorry about your girlfriend. Life is fragile.”
The rare moments when Jobs publicly waxed philosophical were among his most memorable. Perhaps the most widely quoted is his 2005 commencement address to Stanford University’s graduating class: “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important,” he said.

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

He continued: “No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent.”

People often looked to Jobs for advice on dealing with the inevitable, and he seemed eager to offer his guidance.

One of the first calls Bob Longo, a former sales chief for the failed computer company Jobs founded called NeXT Computer, made after getting diagnosed with cancer was to Jobs. (They shared the same oncologist and radiologist.) The pair kept in touch, Longo recalled to the Pittsburgh Business Times, and Longo received an exuberant e-mail from Jobs after telling him the news that Longo’s surgery was successful.

Longo told the Business Times: “Messages from him were generally laconic. This one had 20 exclamation points. I have a cousin who’s a pretty well regarded cancer research doctor and told him the doctor Steve referred me to; he said, ‘Don’t even ask for a second opinion. Start your treatment.'”

Even in 1995, Jobs seemed undeterred in the face of death. He said in an interview with the Computerworld Honors Program: “We’re all going to be dead soon; that’s my point of view. Somebody once told me, they said, ‘Live each day as if it would be your last, and one day you’ll certainly be right.’ I do that. You never know when you’re going to go, but you are going to go pretty soon. If you’re going to leave anything behind, it’s going to be your kids, a few friends and your work. So that’s what I tend to worry about.”

Jobs set out to “put a dent in the universe,” as he would say, and many believe he did just that. He transformed industries, improved important tools and changed the daily lives for billions of people.

But as much as the world may have needed a visionary like Jobs, he apparently needed us, too.

“You know, there’s nothing that makes my day more than getting an e-mail from some random person in the universe who just bought an iPad over in the U.K. and tells me the story about how it’s the coolest product they’ve ever brought home, you know, in their lives,” Jobs said at the All Things Digital conference in 2010.

“That’s what keeps me going. And it’s what kept me going five years ago. It’s what kept me going 10 years ago, when the doors were almost closed. And it’s what’ll keep me going five years from now, whatever happens,” he said. Jobs died 16 months later to a public outpouring of grief.

(Reuters) – Iranian protesters stormed two British diplomatic compounds in Tehran on Tuesday, smashing windows, torching a car and burning the British flag in protest against new sanctions imposed by London.

Britain said it was outraged and warned of “serious consequences.” The U.N. Security Council condemned the attacks “in the strongest terms.” U.S. President Barack Obama said he was disturbed by the incident and called on Iran to hold those responsible to account.

The attacks come at a time of rising diplomatic tension between Iran and Western nations who last week imposed fresh sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear program, which they believe is aimed at achieving the capability of making an atomic bomb.

The embassy storming is also a sign of deepening political infighting within Iran’s ruling hardline elites, with the conservative-led parliament attempting to force the hand of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and expel the British ambassador.

“Radicals in Iran and in the West are always in favor of crisis … Such radical hardliners in Iran will use the crisis to unite people and also to blame the crisis for the fading economy,” said political analyst Hasan Sedghi.

Several dozen protesters broke away from a crowd of a few hundred outside the main British embassy compound in downtown Tehran, scaled the gates, broke the locks and went inside.

Protesters pulled down the British flag, burned it, and put up the Iranian flag, Iranian news agencies and news pictures showed. Inside, the demonstrators smashed windows of office and residential quarters and set a car ablaze, news pictures showed.

One took a framed picture of Queen Elizabeth, state TV showed. Others carried the royal crest out through the embassy gate as police stood by, pictures carried by the semi-official Fars news agency showed.

All embassy personnel were accounted for, a British diplomat told Reuters in Washington, saying Britain did not believe that any sensitive materials had been seized.

Demonstrators waved flags symbolizing martyrdom and held aloft portraits of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has the final say on matters of state in Iran.

Another group of protesters broke into a second British compound at Qolhak in north Tehran, the IRNA state news agency said. Once the embassy’s summer quarters, the sprawling, tree-lined compound is now used to house diplomatic staff.

An Iranian report said six British embassy staff had been briefly held by the protesters. British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the situation had been “confusing” and that he would not have called them “hostages.”

“Police freed the six people working for the British embassy in Qolhak garden,” Iran’s Fars news agency said.

A German school next to the Qolhak compound was also damaged, the German government said.

BRITAIN OUTRAGED

Police appeared to have cleared the demonstrators in front of the main downtown embassy compound, but later clashed with protesters and fired tear gas to try to disperse them, Fars said. Protesters nevertheless entered the compound a second time, before once again leaving, it said.

British Prime Minister David Cameron chaired a meeting of the government crisis committee to discuss the attacks which he said were “outrageous and indefensible.”

“The failure of the Iranian government to defend British staff and property was a disgrace,” he said in a statement.

“The Iranian government must recognize that there will be serious consequences for failing to protect our staff. We will consider what these measures should be in the coming days.”

The United States, alongside the European Union and many of its member states also strongly condemned the attacks.

There have been regular protests outside the British embassy over the years since the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed shah, but never have any been so violent.

The attacks and hostage-taking were a reminder of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran carried out by radical students who held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. The United States cut diplomatic ties with Iran after the hostage-taking.

All British embassy personnel were accounted for and safe, a British diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters in Washington.

The diplomat said the attack likely flowed from Britain’s November 21 decision to impose new sanctions on Iran because of its nuclear program, including a ban on British financial institutions dealing with their Iranian counterparts.

“It’s impossible, really, not to reach that conclusion,” the diplomat said, suggesting that the protests may have been sparked by the Iranian authorities.

“In the past we have certainly had demonstrations that have … been sanctioned, if not encouraged, by the government. I don’t know about this one. I don’t think we’d put it past them,” said the diplomat.

“It’s hard to imagine, in a place like Iran, that these were some kind of spontaneous (event),” said a State Department official who declined to be identified.

INFIGHTING

The demonstrations appeared to be a bid by conservatives who control parliament to press home their demand, passed in parliament last week and quickly endorsed by the Guardian Council on Tuesday, for the government to expel the British ambassador in retaliation for the sanctions.

A lawmaker had warned on Sunday that angry Iranians could storm the British embassy.

“Parliament officially notified the president over a bill regarding degrading the ties with Britain, obliging the government to implement it within five days,” Fars news agency quoted speaker Ali Larijani as saying.

Ahmadinejad’s government has shown no willingness to compromise on its refusal to halt its nuclear work, but has sought to keep channels of negotiation open in an effort to limit the worst effects of sanctions.

An Iranian official told Reuters the storming of the British compounds was not planned by the government.

“It was not an organized measure. The establishment had no role in it. It was not planned,” said the official, who declined to be identified. Iran’s Foreign Ministry said it regretted the attacks and was committed to ensuring the safety of diplomats.

Police arrested 12 people who had entered the north Tehran compound, Fars said, quoting a police chief as saying they would be handed over to the judiciary.

Protesters said they planned to stage a sit-in at the gates of the north Tehran compound and would not move until they were told to do so by Iran’s religious leaders.

Britain, along with the United States and Canada, imposed new unilateral sanctions on Iran last week, while the EU, France and Italy have all said financial measures against Tehran should be strengthened.

(Additional reporting by Hossein Jaseb and Hashem Kalantari in Tehran, Parisa Hafezi in Istanbul, William Maclean and Adrian Croft in London and Arshad Mohammed in Washington. Writing by Jon Hemming, editing by Andrew Roche and Christopher Wilson)